Lighters
by Feyren
Summary: Tachibana An is in college, studying abroad, and conquering Columbia's tennis team. It's perfect—excepting the part where she has to figure out a relationship with Kirihara Akaya, who is studying abroad with her. KiriAn
1. Chapter 1

It's been forever!

For those of you who don't know me - I'm Feyren. I used to write pretty regularly for Prince of Tennis, but the last couple of years have been incredibly busy. Now that things are calming down again, though, I'm really excited to reenter the fandom. I imagine that a lot has changed here; amazing, talented writers that I knew have long left, and a lot of amazing, talented writers I don't know yet have taken their place. I can't wait to get to know you all.

I've always loved KiriAn, and while I still want to continue with _Romeo and Juliet_, I also wanted to try their relationship from a new angle—without their teams putting pressure on them one way or the other, just _them, _interacting with each other one on one (at first, at least). Halfway through the story, the story will shift from New York back to Japan. I think Kirihara and An have a lot of potential, and I am excited to write Kirihara differently from how I portray him in my humor-fics; we give him a fandom personality that really personifies his position as the team-kid, but there is so much more to him than that, and I hope I can portray that well.

Disclaimer: I don't own Prince of Tennis, or "Spectrum" (one of my favorite songs!) by Zedd. Nor do I own Columbia University.

* * *

**Lighters, 1**

_breathing you in when I want you out_

_Spectrum, _Zedd

* * *

Tachibana An watched New York City fly by from the window of her taxi cab.

New York was overwhelming and loud and _bright, _bright in a way that Tokyo wasn't. New York was a hash of eclectic colors that shouldn't belong together, colors and lights that clashed into and ran away from each other in energy and chaos, and An loved it. New York felt like electricity, instantaneous and blinding and all-encompassing, and An had always liked that—in cities, in people.

She didn't really have a singular reason for choosing the University of Tokyo. Very few people, she suspected, made major life decisions from one factor alone. Part of the reason she chose the university was for its reputation—she had the qualifications for it, she was accepted, and she saw no reason to turn it down. Part of the reason was because a number of her close friends also attended the university—friends from middle school and high school, and friends from tennis (Fuji-senpai and Momoshiro and Kamio and—). But if she were to be honest with herself, the fact that Tokyo University had recently announced its new exchange program for freshmen (spend a semester of freshman year in any one of these great cities, they promised, an experience like no other)—well. She had plenty of reasons for choosing the University of Tokyo, but that was probably her main one. And An chose New York City.

She had only done one study abroad program before this, a small month-long thing in Hong Kong back in her senior year of high school, where her host family spoke English but understood Japanese. It had been casual and fun, but this would be different—for an entire semester, she would actually be taking classes at Columbia University, alongside American students, living in their dorms and eating their food (which had better be as good as the rumors claimed, or she'd have a bone to pick with somebody).

It hadn't really kicked in yet, the realization that she was in college. That she wasn't in Tokyo anymore. That Kamio wouldn't show up at her door, asking if she wanted to get lunch, that she wouldn't run into Momoshiro on the street courts, that her brother wouldn't be there to banter with her. Her hair was longer and she'd lost the hair clips but sometimes she still felt fifteen, reckless-brave and _dare-you-dare-me _confident. She dressed like she was eighteen but looking out the window at the city, she felt like the Fudomine freshman in the sailor uniform, wide-eyed and a little lost, a little excited, surrounded by strange new buildings and strange new people who expected her to act more maturely than she felt.

The cab slowed to a halt, and An saw a vast expanse of buildings decorated with pale blue flags, regal and imposing. Students roamed the campus, walking from one building to another, largely ignoring each other, holding laptops and talking on their phones like they were too important and busy to say hello to the other students on campus. An swallowed, then fumbled for her wallet.

"Here you go; have a good day," she said in English, handing the cab fare to the driver. There was a pause. An panicked.

_Oh God please tell me I said "here you go" and not "your head is remarkably bald" or something like that_—

The cab driver smiled and thanked her as she got out, and she breathed a quick sigh of relief. The one apprehension she'd had about studying in New York for a year was her grasp of the English language. She got good grades and whatnot, but speaking English in class and speaking English to an American were completely different experiences. She could get away with ducking her head and a "just kidding" in class if she screwed up—she doubted her American professor (or even her American waiter) would grant her the same luxury.

She stood outside the building and checked to see that it matched the address on the paper she'd been mailed some weeks ago. "Me, living here," she breathed, and tried to imagine herself in the city for the next semester. She began marching determinedly toward the automatic doors.

_Okay. Okay, Tachibana An. All these Columbia kids are going to think you are the very embodiment of grace. You are going to walk in through those doors and be elegant like a… like a porpoise. Or like a porcupine. Or a – _

"Oof!" Something cold and hard collided with her face.

A door.

She had just walked into the door. It would seem that the doors weren't automatic after all.

Well, then.

A couple of students stared at her as she clutched her nose with her hands, swearing colorfully under her breath. "Nothing to see here," she grumbled. "Just your average college freshman walking into a door. Move along." _If anyone else stares_, An decided, _I will tell them walking into doors is a cultural Japanese thing. And they will believe me. Maybe._

The lady at the front desk was far less judgmental, even though An's nose was probably swollen red and perhaps even crooked after that door-encounter. She hoped not. "Tachibana An," she said brightly. "Freshman class, room 618. I'm an international student." _And I walk into doors, and think about porcupines, and… _

The lady returned her smile. "Welcome to Columbia University, An," she said, in a fluid English that An wished she could emulate. "Here are your room keys, and a name tag. Please put it on for the club fair later today, and enjoy your stay at the university."

An scribbled "An Tachibana" on the '_hello, my name is' _sticker, and pressed it to her blouse. _You may as well have just given me a name-tag that says "Hello, my name is Freshman," _An thought, but kept it to herself, and looked for an elevator that would take her to the sixth floor.

Being eighteen was a strange thing. She had power, she was independent. People took her word as it was. Her parents didn't have to sign things. She could fail a math test and get away with it without her parents noticing. She could ask for the key to her new dorm room by herself, where she would be living with an unknown roommate, at an unknown university, in an unknown city. It was a sort of freedom she wasn't used to, a lack of familiarity that half-scared her and half-thrilled her, because new beginnings were fun and a little terrifying. For once she was Tachibana An, not _daughter-of_ or_ sister-of_ or _teammate-of_ or_ friend-of._

She was just... An.

She pulled out the key to her new room and opened the door to her dorm room.

* * *

Over the next couple of hours, An learned several things:

First, there were eight other students from the University of Tokyo who had chosen to attend Columbia for the first semester of their freshman year, and An's roommate, Haibara Haruki, a tall, willowy girl with sandy brown hair and glassy lavender eyes, was one of them.

Second, Columbia buildings had ridiculously fancy and stuck-up names (Lerner, Hamilton, Philosophy Hall…) to go with their ridiculously fancy and stuck-up architecture.

Third, the university dining hall food was mediocre at best.

And fourth, An needed to find a club to join _fast_ if she wanted to make friends, because Columbia was a giant university in a giant city that apparently felt no need to foster any feeling of community.

She half-listened as Haruki told her stories about her puppy back home in Kyoto, and eyed the different buildings on campus. Haruki was a good conversationalist, a little quiet and meek, but sweet and friendly, and An liked her.

Classes hadn't officially started yet, but students were already beginning to move in for orientation week, where students were introduced to the university (and, perhaps more importantly, the clubs). A few people caught her eye here and there, but for the large part An paid them no mind, just drank in the campus, how much larger than life everything was, and thought, _This was a good choice. Good like mochi ice cream. _

"…seems like a good idea," Haruki was saying thoughtfully. "What do you think?"

An snapped to attention. "Sorry, what?" she blurted, then smiled sheepishly when Haruki gave her a look.

"I said," Haruki said, with exaggerated exasperation, "that we should go to the club fair today, if that would so please you, my dearest An-chan."

"An-chan works," An replied airily. "I also respond to Her Majesty, Her Royal Highness, and President of Catalonia."

Haruki laughed. "President of Catalonia might be a stretch. Maybe just start with Mayor of Barcelona?"

An liked that about Haruki—that she was willing to play along with An's silliness. Not that An was being silly, of course. President of Catalonia was serious business. "You have to aim high," she said, straight-faced. "I'm already eighteen. If I start at Mayor of Barcelona, how will I ever get to be President of Spain by the time I'm twenty?" She nodded decisively. "I'm going for President of Catalonia, running for President of Spain once I'm nineteen, and then conquering the Soviet Union before I turn thirty."

"Never mind that it doesn't exist anymore," Haruki said dryly.

"I will make it exist," An said seriously, "and then conquer it."

"You do that," Haruki told her, "and I will look for the debate team's stand at the club fair."

"I can help you with that," An offered.

"You sure? Not too busy conquering the Soviet Union?"

An scoffed. "I have at _least_ a decade to do that. The club fair awaits." She paused, and gestured to the name-tag sticker on her shirt. "If I write 'Putin' instead of 'An Tachibana' on my name-tag, do you think people would give me more deference here, or kick me out of college?"

Haruki rolled her eyes fondly to the sky.

* * *

The next thing An did was look for a tennis court. Because never mind that it was August and a thousand and one degrees—if Columbia University wanted to call itself a top-tier university, it had better have tennis courts.

She had some difficulty navigating the trains by herself (because goddamnit _why_ exactly Haruki needed to go get dinner at 5PM before the club fair instead of going to hunt for tennis courts with An was just _incomprehensible and absurd_), but after some wrong stops and a bit of wandering, she found it—a giant dome building, with indoor tennis courts bright blue like the sea. Six cushioned hard courts, fantastic lighting ("Some of the best in the world," the coat-check boy had told her proudly), ball machines…

Her grip on her bag tightened. She wanted so badly to drop everything and just _play_, but it was getting close to seven and she didn't trust herself to find her way back to campus in a timely manner. She hadn't brought a racquet or tennis clothes either.

The soft, rhythmic _thwack _of the ball resounded in her ears. An scanned the courts, gave each player a brief once-over. Who was playing? Who was relevant?

From the looks of it, most of the players were members of the varsity tennis team. They sported university athletic wear, had excellent form. If An did decide to join the team, she would have competition. Good competition. She considered it. She hadn't committed herself to playing competitive tennis in college, especially during her study-abroad. Even if she did make the team, she reasoned (which was entirely possible, because she was pretty good, damn it), she would only be able to play with the team for a couple of months before she had to return to Japan.

On the other hand, it seemed kind of obnoxious to demand a court to herself when she wasn't a member of the varsity team, with no competitive matches to worry about. And she wasn't sure that the varsity players would be willing to play a pick-up match with her, either. An doubted "captain of my high school tennis team in Japan" meant much here.

_If I were the president of Catalonia, however, they would have to defer to me, wouldn't they? Maybe that's what I should be doing with my life. President of Catalonia. Also president of sea turtles._

There was a doubles match going on in Court 1, between two pairs of women presumably on the women's varsity team. They were okay, An decided. Good players, but nothing special.

An knew special.

Her brother was special—was competing in Australia, working with professional trainers and looking to break into the pro leagues. Her friends were special—Fuji who, despite choosing not to pursue tennis professionally, was remarkably talented. Tezuka who, although she wasn't really _friends _with him, was causing a ruckus in Germany with his tennis. And Echizen—she wasn't even sure what he was doing these days, competing in a tournament here, a tournament there, this country that country, this month that time, all the while sleeping through English class (said Momoshiro, who was also something else, even if he was just a street-courts tennis partner and friend to her).

She felt a pang of nostalgia and longing. New York suddenly seemed like such a faraway place.

_You didn't come here to miss home. Get a grip. How are you going to be president of Catalonia with that attitude? _

She took a deep breath and looked at the rest of the courts.

Court 2 was a singles match between a boy and a girl. Court 3 was being used for some sort of tennis lesson. Court 4 was another doubles match. Court 5 was empty. Her eyes stopped on Court 6.

Two boys were playing a singles match. One boy, with light, wavy hair was playing, playing well, but very obviously losing. He was out of breath and exhausted, and the look on his face suggested he wanted the match to be over. He bent forward, his head hung, panting as he held his racquet, his knuckles white.

An couldn't see the other boy clearly—tall, she noticed, and dark, curly hair. He stood impatiently on the other side of the court, waiting for the first boy to catch his breath. When he did, the second boy served, and it was a _good serve_—a great serve, really something else. Maybe it was the way he carried himself: a little differently from the other players in the fitness center, with the confidence of someone who won all the time and knew he would win again. An recognized that cockiness.

He played with energy—energy like New York, like electricity, like brightness, like a hash of eclectic colors that shouldn't belong together, colors and lights that clashed into and ran away from each other in energy and chaos, instantaneous and blinding and all-encompassing.

She liked energy.

Again, the overwhelming urge to play. To grab a racquet and tap the boy on the shoulder and say, "Play a match with me."

The match ended quickly—a bit too quickly. "Good game, kid," the first boy said, still catching his breath. "You're really amazing."

"Thanks," said the second boy, and An did a double-take at his accent. Was he Japanese?

The second boy walked off the courts and toward a pile of miscellaneous supplies in the corner—towels and water and a tennis bag that presumably were his, and when he glanced up, he met her eyes. She did a double-take, and forgot to look away.

An got a good, clear look at his face and swore under her breath.

_You _must _be kidding me._

Green eyes, green like electricity, electric like New York City, electric like—

Like Kirihara Akaya.

(But Kirihara wasn't electric. He wasn't green. He wasn't a current but a thunderstorm, was violence, wild and manic and dangerous and _cruel and red_—)

He held her gaze for a second, and she stared back, dumbfounded by her luck (or lack thereof—why the _fuck_ was he in New York City?), suddenly at a loss.

Then he arched an eyebrow, and walked right over to her.

_Aw, fuck._

He had grown taller since she had last seen him. They hadn't interacted much since that one incident when they were thirteen, and she watched him as he watched her, as he loped over to her. His cheeks had lost their childlike roundness, and his body was leaner, surer, like he had grown into it. His eyes were still green, so green, green like absinthe and electricity and it sparked the air, set it crackling.

The other people in the fitness center were staring and she didn't know why. She cleared her throat. The president of Catalonia and sea turtles wouldn't be made to feel uncomfortable by one stupid green-eyed boy, even if he was good at tennis.

"Hey." In the moment that she wasn't paying attention, he had positioned himself a foot away from her. She didn't respond.

"Hey," he said again, sounding irritated. "What are you staring at?" His tennis was (begrudgingly) incredible, but his English was mediocre at best. She wondered why he was speaking to her in English instead of Japanese. Did he not recognize her?

She debated between punching him in the face and turning 180 degrees and walking away, then settled for, "Just admiring how horrible your English is."

She said it in Japanese, and Kirihara arched an eyebrow. "You're Japanese?"

An rolled her eyes. "No, I'm a fairy bestowed with psychic powers that allow me to speak in any language I choose. Today, I chose Japanese. You can consider yourself a lucky kid, 'cause your English was awful."

"Kid?" he repeated, amused. "Really?" He stepped closer to her until he towered over her. "How old are _you_, twelve?"

"I'm eighteen," An snapped, "but at least I don't act like a toddler."

Kirihara snorted. "Okay. Well, at least I don't stare at people while they're playing matches. Like a stalker. Was my tennis that awe-inspiring? Or was it my dashing good looks? Maybe both?"

His tennis was pretty impressive, but like hell she was going to admit _that_. "You need to get a grip on reality," she blustered. "Do you go around asking people if they find you attractive? You must be a pretty desperate kid. Don't get much action, do you?"

He looked like he was about to reply, but the words seemed to catch in his throat, because he paused. The ensuing silence (which felt like hours, even though it was probably a couple of seconds) was incredibly awkward. An shifted uncomfortably. "How'd you know I'm Japanese?" he suddenly asked.

So he really didn't recognize her. Maybe that was for the best—she had no intention of seeing him again, and she had no intention of making a scene here, either. She leaned in, sneered, and hoped that it was intimidating as hell. "Consider it a lucky guess."

For a second, his face was blank. He looked at her intently, as if debating what to do with her, this petite, feisty little girl—then his eyes stopped. On her name-tag. "An Tachibana," he read, slowly, deliberately, rolling the sounds on his tongue as if he were tasting her name. What was that in his eyes? Recognition? Annoyance? Amusement?

"Yes," she said stiffly. "So you can read. How nice." Then, "Do you remember me?"

He shrugged, a loose rolling of the shoulders. "Yeah."

She waited. Waited for some reference to her team, her brother, _something_.

But all he said was, "You're from Tokyo, yeah? What, couldn't get enough of me in Japan so you followed me to America?"

An sputtered indignantly. _This __kid...!_ Then she inhaled, and gave him the brightest, most sarcastic smile she could muster. "It must be fate. I was _just_ thinking to myself how great it would be if I were to run into the world's biggest jerk to amuse me for the next few minutes, and suddenly there you were."

Kirihara grinned. "I also hold the title for world's best tennis player and world's prettiest eyes."

She had dozens of questions and wonderings—why was he in New York? Why was he playing tennis at Columbia University's fitness center? Was he a student here? Was he alone? Didn't he remember what he did to her brother? But she bit them all back, kept her eyes hard, and glared at him the best she could.

He stared back, waiting for her to finish her question. His eyes were like lighters.

The thought invaded and penetrated her mind, refused to leave. _Eyes like lighters eyes like lighters lighters lighters. Green like electricity like New York like _him.

And faintly, in the back of her head:

_Damn it, Haruki had the right idea getting dinner. I'm starving. _

She turned on her heel and stormed out of the fitness center.

"Rude," he called after her.

"Fascist," she called back, without turning around—because, hey, that was the first thing she thought of.

His laugh danced in her head like an echo in an empty room, bouncing off wall after wall after wall, and followed her on the train ride back to campus.


	2. Chapter 2

Hi guys, good to have you here. It's been a long time since I've really written a story, and this is a really hectic time (as anyone who is in college might know), so don't mind me while I update super slowly. Also, I would love some input on what you guys like and don't like. I love the idea of developing An and Akaya independently of their respective teams and cliques (for a bit, at least), but I think there are drawbacks to doing it that way, too. Tell me what you think.

also, I have this story planned out until chapter seven yay

* * *

**Lighters, 2**

_take a chance, let your body get a tolerance_

_I Don't Care_, Fall Out Boy

* * *

Haruki liked her new roommate, but sometimes she didn't quite know what to make of her. An-chan, who switched from talking about the Catalonian referendum to her brother ("He's amazing," An had told her with a conviction so great that Haruki felt convinced by her words alone) to sea turtles. An-chan, who went from excitedly searching for the university tennis courts to returning to campus grouchily, muttering something about fascism under her breath. An-chan, who veered off to find a wall to hit her head against when she was told during the club fair that the only tennis courts near the university were the ones at the fitness center she'd found earlier.

_Ladies and gentlemen,_ Haruki thought wryly, as An enthusiastically debated the future of unicorns in the state of the union with the captain of the women's basketball team. _Ladies and gentlemen, meet my roommate. _

Weird as she was (and Haruki liked that about her), An was undeniably fun, bright, warm. She soaked up smiles like sunshine and returned them like sunshine too. She was outgoing and approachable, and even though English wasn't her first language, by the end of the club fair she had made a solid circle of new friends.

And she undeniably charmed the entire tennis team, whether she wanted to or not. Haruki thought An was always warm, always cheery, but something _lit up_ when she talked about tennis. It was like everything else was _other_, and tennis was_ her_—Haruki had never personally experienced that sort of enthusiasm for anything in particular, but the way An talked about tennis made Haruki want to try it, too. The tennis team insisted that An sign up for their newsletter, and promised that they would let her know when tryouts were ("You should definitely try out," they told her. "We could really use someone like you," they assured her). An herself had seemed a bit hesitant when she heard that their tennis practices were held at the fitness center, and informed them that she was only here for a semester (but "That's not important; just try out anyway," they said).

So An signed up for the tennis team's newsletter.

The only other time An lit up like that, like fireworks and bonfires and warm, warm things (_hot with energy but I won't burn_)_, _was when she talked about her life in Japan. _This,_ Haruki could understand. She missed her parents back home, too; she missed her puppy, she missed her friends. But An didn't just talk about her family (although she talked about her brother a lot in particular, who was apparently competing in the pro circuits in Australia—_the tennis obsession must run in the family_, Haruki thought); she talked about her friends back home, people named Fuji and Kamio and Momoshiro and Echizen and Ibu. She talked about them with a kind of special fondness, and Haruki would smile and nod and try to follow along, because there was no stopping An when she started rambling like that, and Haruki didn't really mind.

An-chan, who loved tennis and her brother and her friends and Japan. An-chan, who loved adventure. An-chan, who was like sunshine. An-chan, who came back from the tennis courts a little grouchy, a little pensive, a little uncomfortable.

Haruki shook her head in something like exasperation and wonder.

* * *

An found that many of the international students of each country tended to stick together, but decided she didn't want that. Not that she wanted to avoid the international students—but what was the point of studying abroad if you only stuck with people who spoke your language, were from your country, your culture, your ideology? If she spent her entire semester sticking only with the other students from the University of Tokyo, she may as well have just stayed in Tokyo.

So An smiled at people as they walked past her on campus. She sat next to strangers at the dining halls and struck up conversation. She left the door to her and Haruki's room open, called out greetings to people who lived on her floor, and soon she had a strong circle of friends—Americans, Argentinians, French, British. She anticipated getting to know the tennis players on the women's varsity team, too, and soon, New York started to feel—while not _home, _at least _familiar_.

An walked into her literature class a few minutes early. It was a large lecture class set in an even larger, ostentatious building—the type of building she imagined Atobe Keigo would appreciate (and perhaps own. Now wouldn't that be interesting? What if he owned the university? Some food for thought). Students opened their laptops (who needed laptops to take notes during a _literature_ class?) and sipped their coffee, acting more important than they were or needed to be, considering most of the students in the class were freshmen. An's face brightened when she recognized a classmate, who waved her over.

"Hi, An," Caitlin-san greeted her.

"Hey, Caitlin. Did you finish the reading for today?"

Caitlin-san was a student from somewhere in America—which state exactly, An couldn't remember—who lived next door to An and Haruki, and who was also in her literature class. (Although she called them by their first names to their faces, internally, An couldn't help but add honorifics to their names. So for now, they were Caitlin-san, Brian-kun, Maria-chan…)

"Define _'finish,'"_ Caitlin-san joked, a little self-deprecatingly, a little sheepishly.

"Some American you are, if you need an international student to define stuff for you," An said in mock-exasperation. "'Finish.' The act of completing an action or task. Synonyms for 'finish' include complete, terminate, cease…"

"Oh, I definitely ceased my reading," Caitlin-san laughed. "I just didn't complete it."

An grinned at her. "I feel you." Because really, who _could_ bear to read fifty pages of _Wuthering Heights_ in a night? She sat in the seat next to her and sighed exaggeratedly. "Such is the life of a college student. It's a Friday afternoon. We should be out in the city, hitting the clubs, exploring the ghettos, getting into gang fights…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, that escalated quickly. I'm not sure you could handle a gang fight, An."

"Do you doubt my street rep?" An stood up and in front of Caitlin-san as if to tower over her. Never mind that the girl was much taller than An. "Do you _doubt _my _street rep_?"

"Oh, no, not at all," Caitlin-san said seriously. "I'm sure you have great street rep. People probably cower when you walk past them."

"Damn straight," An said, and Caitlin-san grinned.

"But the gangs of Columbia University probably have more manpower than you do," Caitlin-san continued. "You know how vicious the gangs are at preppy universities. What if they injure you with their boatshoes? And preppy bowties? What then?"

"They may have bowties, but I have sea turtles," An said decisively. "And that trumps everything."

"Ah, the vicious power of sea turtles." Caitlin-san nodded wisely. "Indeed, you may be right that you have the upper hand there."

"Ladies."

A voice at the front of the classroom brought them to attention, and with a jolt, An realized that she was still standing, that she and Caitlin-san were the only ones talking, that the class was staring at them, and that the professor had arrived and was looking at them with a look of bafflement, annoyance, and amusement. "As much as I would like to allow you to continue your discussion on sea turtles, I will have to ask you to continue this discussion _after _class."

An sat down and ducked her head. "Yes, sir." She and Caitlin-san shared a secret smile. Continue after class, indeed.

The professor began to drone on about Emily Brontë, and how they would study _Wuthering Heights _for most of the semester and wasn't Romantic literature just _great_, while An began to doodle in her notebook. First she drew herself. Then her brother, a stick figure wielding a tennis racquet standing on a circle labeled 'Australia.' And as the hour passed on, she drew each members of each team she could remember—Kikumaru, a stick figure jumping in the air. Fuji, a stick figure with blades for eyes (_blades like ice don't touch it burns_), which she illustrated with two straight, horizontal lines. Atobe, a stick figure on a throne (that looked more like a stool the way she drew it, but _shh_). The lecture was almost over by the time An got to drawing Rikkai, and she thought of Kirihara, with his electric green eyes and _dare you dare me_ smile. Her hand stopped, and the lines she was doodling slowed to a halt.

How did one put electricity to paper? How did one illustrate energy?

_How do I draw Kirihara Akaya_?

She thought of the boy she'd seen yesterday—a boy, a _boy_, eighteen years old (was he even eighteen yet? When was his birthday?), just a boy playing tennis. And his eyes weren't red when she saw them, but green like absinthe, like electricity, like _dare you dare me. _She thought of their banter. She had cut it short, but she hadn't needed to, really, hadn't really _wanted_ to.

(But she did, because he was horrible, because he did horrible things on a horrible team and now he was _here_, in New York City, in America, for some godforsaken reason—)

And then she thought of the boy with red eyes, with maniacal laughter and something dangerous in his eyes—and that danger had never really left his eyes, not really. It was always there, and it was there when An last saw him, too—_dare you dare me_, it said, _I dare you to dare me. _

Five years had made him older, stronger, leaner, taller, sharper in feature and more mature. He was a boy on the verge of being a man, dancing at the cusp of adulthood, waltzing on its balance beam. Five years had done that for him, but it had yet to remove the danger from his eyes.

_Who are you, Kirihara Akaya_?

An wondered.

* * *

The summer sun beat down on the pavement like a relentless wave of well-placed smashes, one after another, following An no matter where she stepped. She was already beginning to sweat, and she hadn't even changed into exercise clothes yet. The strap of her tennis bag wore into her shoulder, leaving behind small, red, gridded indents on her skin.

The dome of the tennis center was large and dark in comparison to the outside heat. The courts were a cool splash of blue to her eyes, and she bounced a little in anticipation as she speed-walked to the changing rooms, flashing her ID card and a sunny smile to the security guard as she sped past.

It would be the first time she picked up her racquet in about a month. She hadn't had time to play while packing for her study-abroad—or, for that matter, preparing to go to college. The last game she played had been a pick-up match with Momoshiro and a few friends from high school, and the feeling of gripping a tennis racquet, of feet pounding the courts, swinging her arms and that satisfying _thwack_ when the ball hit just the right spot against her racquet strings… it burned like a brand in her mind and it drove her to walk faster, faster, faster to the changing room, change _faster, go go go _and _play, _damn it, and maybe this stupid city will feel like home—

A girl tapped her on the shoulder. She was tall, slim, with long hair tied back in a ponytail, and she looked at An intently. Her smile was friendly and even familiar, like she was waiting for An to recognize her. She stood next to a boy with dark eyes, handsome but not too handsome, handsome like he knew it, and the boy watched her as the girl continued, "Hey, I'm Maria. We met earlier today. You signed up for our newsletter. I'm on the girl's tennis team. Do you want to play with me? Just a rally."

An didn't remember her. There had been so many girls—eight? Nine? Ten? Probably more, since the non-regulars had shown up too to help promote the club. But— "That would be great," An beamed.

Maria nodded to the boy, who didn't bother introducing himself, just nodded back and stepped aside as the girls took the last available court. An didn't pay him enough attention to watch him watch her.

She wasn't as tall as she had hoped to be at eighteen. She wasn't _short_, either, but sometimes she wished she were tall like Inui from Seigaku, or Ootori from Hyotei, so she could hit without having to jump and reach quite so much. Maria, though—she was tall. She sent shots flying right over An's head, and An grimaced a little as she raced to the back of the court, because somehow those shots ended up _right_ on the baseline and like hell she was going to lose to hits like that on her first day at the university courts. (Not that they were keeping score, but An somehow felt that Maria was the type of person who _would,_ who wanted to see where An was at, if An deserved the attention that the women's tennis team had so eagerly heaped on her. And, well, maybe An didn't, but it certainly wouldn't be because she was playing bad tennis.)

They rallied back and forth for what was probably a half hour. Maria hit hard, and An hit back harder. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the boy watching—her? Or Maria? The thought flitted around the back of her mind, and when Maria stopped hitting and An stepped back to catch her breath, the boy stepped forward, said something to Maria, then smiled a friendly smile to An and passed her a towel. "That was great," he told her. "You're really good. Are you new here? Where are you from?"

"Japan," An said, taking the towel and dabbing at the sweat beading her forehead. "How about you?"

"Oh, I'm a New Yorker," he said. "My name's Kenny. It's nice to meet you."

"An," she replied. "Nice to meet you too."

Maria stepped over too, hopping over the net, and Kenny fell silent. "That _was_ great," she agreed. "You've clearly played before. Are you going to try out for the team? We'd love to have you." Her smile was friendly, but there was challenge laced in her friendliness.

_What's your next move? _

An knew what this was. She didn't grow up here, but she secretly suspected that this was a truth universal everywhere—the social hierarchy, the social order, the _who are you where do we place you _that was defined by a tennis match in her social scene, but perhaps not in New York's. She couldn't intimidate people with smiles the way some people could (Fuji Syusuke and Yukimura Seiichi came to mind), and she wasn't sure that she wanted to intimidate Maria, either. Enemies weren't really her thing.

(She was, however, quite fond of turtles and cream soda.)

But she smiled back anyway, a bright-too-bright little thing that she hoped conveyed the confidence she laced in her words: "Yeah, and I'll see you on the courts sometime soon, too."

Maria took a second to consider this, stared back at her for a second too long. Then her smile softened, smoothed away its edge when she replied, "That would be great."

(And An marveled at the oddity that was American college women.)

"Right, well, if we're quite done here," Kenny laughed, bumping Maria lightly with his hip. He turned to face An. "I would _really_ like to get to know you." The smile he gave her was a little too mischievous. He held her gaze for a little too long. His dark eyes were a little too intense and they bore into hers. They were obscure and opaque and they focused on her like she was a page in a book, a word on a page, a letter in a word that he could see, he could read. "I'm the vice-captain of the men's varsity team here. So I thought…" He laughed. "Y'know, we could talk over coffee, establish some connections. Connections are a big deal here, and you're clearly going to be a big deal on the team. We should get to know each other."

An didn't want to antagonize him, but at the same time, she suspected his intentions. So she did what she always did in situations like these—wiped any sort of confusion from her face and smiled back breezily. "Maybe. What do you have in mind?"

He seemed amused. "Well, there's a Starbucks just down the street we could go to. I have a couple of hours before my next class anyway, so a coffee would be great. If you want to come, I mean." He was backtracking. He didn't want to seem desperate. An knew the game. She just didn't especially want to play it.

And the truth was she didn't especially want to go to the coffee shop with him either. She wanted to play another match and then go home and watch Game of Thrones in all its Japanese subtitled glory. But Maria was looking at her expectantly, already putting her tennis racquet away, and this kid was vice captain, and from the way Maria deferred to him it seemed he had a lot of sway. Even though he certainly didn't seem like much of a hotshot.

_Part of this whole making friends thing, right?_

She sighed. "Yeah, why not. Not like I was going to do anything exciting, anyway."

His grin widened. "You think I'm exciting? We're gonna get along great."

* * *

And fifteen minutes later, still in her tennis clothes, she found herself sitting on a rather uncomfortable wooden stool holding a Frappuccino. Kenny was asking her all the standard questions ("how do you like it on campus? Do you know what you want to major in yet? Any clubs besides the tennis team? What's Japan like?") and she answered them with all the standard answers (what was this, an interview?), except when he asked—"And what are you thinking of doing after college?"

She had no idea, and she laughed and shrugged it off and said as much. Was she supposed to have any idea of what she wanted to do? Probably not, since half of her friends were still undecided on their majors. But a lot of them knew what _areas_ they were interested in—in sciences, medical studies, legal studies… _But here I am, studying at a college that I don't even go to for freshman year… I wonder if I can major in idiocy. _

(She imagined showing up to a job interview, beaming at the interviewer, and introducing herself: "Hi, my name is Tachibana An. I major in undecided with a minor in idiocy. And how are you this fine morning?" With an introduction like that, any firm would be fighting to get her.)

There was a pause in the conversation, and An realized that Kenny had said something. "Sorry, what?"

He smiled good-naturedly, and again, there was that distinct feeling of too-bright, too-nice, of something that couldn't quite be classified as insincerity but certainly couldn't be classified as sincerity, either. "I asked," he said, "if you have any exciting plans this Thursday night."

"It's only Monday. I don't know what I'm doing on Thursday yet."

"Thursdays are pretty important here. In most colleges, Thursdays are party-nights, because we don't have class on Fridays. Do you have class on Fridays?"

She arched an eyebrow and answered honestly, "No, but regardless of what your Thursdays are, chances are that I'm going to watch Game of Thrones with my roommate and tuck in early." _And also fight dragons. Because what else do girls do?_

His laugh was indulgent. "That sounds like a great plan. But hey, if you're free—"

"Kenny, hey."

_That voice_.

She turned around and saw Kirihara, in a burgundy T-shirt and jeans, holding some energy drink, flipping a racquet with his free hand.

"Akaya!" Kenny returned, with the voice of someone who had just seen his best friend. And An would have believed that they were friends, except for the utterly disinterested look on Kirihara's face. He approached the table with slow, languid steps, the glare of his green eyes lessened by half-hooded eyelids. He looked almost like he would fall asleep standing up, but he walked over anyway, and barely spared a glance for An. Kenny stood up and gave him what An supposed was a guy-hug. "Where you been?" He turned to An. "This is Akaya. He's one of my bros."

Kirihara flicked his eyes up towards the ceiling in something between contempt and boredom at the word "bro," and An snorted quietly.

"He's an _amazing_ tennis player," Kenny continued. "They handpicked him from—"

"That goes without saying," Kirihara said.

Kenny's smile looked forced. "Right. We've been trying to get him to join the team, but—"

Whoa. Backtrack. "You're a studenthere?" An asked disbelievingly. "Here?"

Kirihara smirked. "I'm an affiliate. What? Did you think you were the only special snowflake in all of Japan who got to study abroad?"

Well, first off—"I am the _specialest _snowflake, and you'd do well to remember that. I don't see you in any of my classes. Are you taking classes here?"

He shrugged. "No. I'm here on a tennis scholarship for a semester, and then I'm going back to Kanagawa." The smirk returned. "And really? You don't look that special." He gave her a once-over as if he were sizing her up. "Just kind of tiny."

"Tiny?" she repeated indignantly.

"And sweaty," he added. "You should probably shower."

She was about to get up and smack him upside the head when Kenny interrupted, "So you two know each other?"

"Yeah," they replied simultaneously, Kirihara without inflection, An with _quite a bit _of inflection. She gave him a look. _So, how do I go about introducing you? "Hey guys! Meet the kid who put my brother in a hospital when I was thirteen. Pocket full of sunshine, this one." _

Kirihara looked back, then looked at Kenny. "Don't you have somewhere you need to be?" The question was directed at the dark-eyed boy, who looked faintly annoyed. Their eyes met for all of two seconds.

"Do I?" Kenny posed rhetorically, but more or less acquiesced. "I'll see you later, An." He gave her one last meaningful look. "Later, Akaya."

Kirihara didn't react. An gave Kenny a bland little smile and wave as he left, while her mind tried to comprehend what had just occurred—the vice-captain of the men's tennis team, being shooed away by some green-eyed punk who wasn't even an official student. Kirihara's posture, relaxed and languid, so lethargic as to be almost dream-like, while Kenny shuffled out the café with a tenseness in his shoulders it was almost tangible. The top dog of the pack. The alpha male. What did Kirihara have that Kenny didn't? What did Kirihara have _now_, that he didn't have five years ago?

He began to turn away, and An grabbed his arm. "Hey," she snapped. "I don't know what you think you're pulling, but that was rude and just—bizarre."

He sneered. "Like you didn't want to be rid of that creep. What were you guys talking about? Grass growing?"

And—it was true. They hadn't been talking about grass growing, but she hadn't been particularly enjoying that conversation either. There was something weird—something _off_—about Kenny. But, "That doesn't justify walking into a conversation and shooing someone away and acting like you own the place!"

"What makes you think I don't own the place?"

"Is that even a question?"

"Your English must be pretty bad if you can't even tell what questions are," Kirihara said glibly.

"You're—!"

"Yes, I _am _charming and handsome and perfect." Kirihara nodded decisively. "Not that I needed you to tell me that."

"Perfectly ridiculous is what you are," An accused. "The jet lag must be getting to you because I don't think you have your head on straight right now."

"I think my head is perfectly straight. Maybe even perpendicular."

An cocked her head, trying hard to hide a grin. "Looks pretty elliptical to me."

"Really? I've always been told it looked trapezoidal. Trapezoidal heads are really regal, you know. Only people with character have trapezoidal heads."

An snorted. "If by 'character' you mean 'ego complex,' then maybe." She took a moment to look at him. He was grinning at her, and that grin was so familiar.

(he was dancing on the cusp of adulthood

waltzing on its balance beam)

She caught herself grinning back, and stopped. Why was she grinning at this green-eyed boy? Why was she even talking to him? (Why was it fun?) "Anyway, what business is it of yours who I talk to?"

He shrugged, a careless rolling of the shoulders. "You looked bored. I, being benevolent—in addition to being handsome and charming—thought I'd intervene. You should be thanking me."

"Did you stalk me here?" An asked, straight-faced, and took a sort of indulgent pleasure when Kirihara sputtered.

"You've got some ego, Tachibana," he told her. "Are you trying to tell me something? That you're being stalked by someone? Or that you are a stalker? Or that you want to be stalked? Or that you want to become a stalker?"

"Chatty little thing, this one," An said, to no one in particular.

He looked at her like he was drinking her in, and An shifted a bit. When he finally moved, it was a deliberate step towards her, closer closer closer farther farther farther. He walked towards her and then he walked past her. His grin was beaming, his eyes like green static as he said, "I think you've delayed me from tennis practice long enough."

And then, in a much quieter voice, so that only she could hear: "Stay away from Kenny."

The door opened and closed, and like a lightning storm, Kirihara was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

Hi, all. Why am I writing this instead of doing my research paper? Someone tell me why. Por favor.

* * *

**Lighters, 3**

_little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting_

_Here Comes the Sun, _Beatles

* * *

_Thwack._

That should have been the only sound in the dome, ricocheting off walls and around the courts, the only sound in An's mind, but it wasn't.

_Thwack._

It should have been the only sound, because An was hitting lightly with Maria, and the entire women's varsity team was watching, and they should have been paying attention to her hits, but they weren't.

_Thwack. _

They should have been paying attention to her forehand, her backhand, her serves, her smashes. They should have been paying attention to her footwork. But they weren't.

"...ran off," someone whispered. "Akaya intervened."

"But Akaya doesn't talk to _anybody_."

"That's not true."

"You know what I mean!"

"…heard they knew each other—"

An's eye twitched as she ran to the net to return a particularly inconvenient volley. _If they're not going to watch me play, they shouldn't be here, _she thought stubbornly. _I could not give less of a fuck that they are college varsity team regulars. _Somewhere in the back of her mind—perhaps not that far back—was the thought that tennis was something special, something that was being disrespected by gossip on the courts. Somewhere in the back of her mind was the reverence for tennis that her brother had ingrained in himself and in her—that on the courts, during any match, tennis was _self_ and anything else, anything that wasn't tennis, was _other_. And _other_ didn't belong. Not on the courts.

So she played her tennis. And with every whisper she heard, every time she heard "_Akaya_" or "_Kenny_" whispered, she returned the shot harder, faster, fiercer, until the ball burned into the court with all the annoyance she hoped they saw on her face. If it weren't for the fact that there were at least three other matches being played in the dome, she would have yelled at them, scolded them, maybe even tossed a tennis ball at the gaggle of college-aged girls, older and wiser than her but somehow not mature enough to keep from discussing An's little incident with Kenny and Kirihara during a tennis match.

It was becoming increasingly clear to her that at least half of the university tennis team didn't take tennis as seriously as An's friends in Japan did. The girls showed up to the courts in makeup and jewelry, chewing gum and talking on their phones. They rolled their eyes when assigned extra laps, from what she could gather, most of the girls had skipped practice for one reason or another. She imagined what her brother would have to say, what Ibu and Kamio would have to say, what Fudomine, which had worked itself up from scratch, what Seigaku, which had fought tooth and nail for its Nationals title, what Rikkai, with its fierce codes of law, would have to say about a team of glib girls who liked tennis skirts more than the tennis. And each time An entered the dome and approached the courts, she saw them, saw them seeing _her_, talking about her—

All because of a stupid boy with electric eyes.

The reason she was the talk of the team was because she was friends with a green-eyed punk. And damn, if that wasn't annoying.

Maria returned her hits with some difficulty, and if nothing else An appreciated the concentration on Maria's face, appreciated that even if Maria couldn't hit as well as she could, Maria at least appreciated that tennis was self, that gossip was other. She appreciated that a lot.

When the match ended, Maria handed her a towel, and An took the moment to whisper—"Why is this so interesting?" _Have they never seen a male before? Do they live in a cave?_

_Is Kirihara that interesting?_

Maria shrugged. "Because you're good, I guess. They're all waiting for your try-out."

"That's not what I mean."

"And," Maria added, "you're friends with Akaya."

"But why is that…" An struggled to phrase her thoughts in a non-insulting manner. "Why does that matter? Why do they even know him? "

Maria arched an eyebrow. "Jealous?"

An punched her lightly in the arm. "I wish they liked _me _as much."

"It's not that they like him. I mean, they do, but…" Maria shrugged again. "Hot foreign boy comes to America, is labeled some sort of tennis prodigy, and looks sexy as hell in exercise clothes. What else could you want?" _A semi-decent personality _was on the tip of An's tongue, but she kept it to herself. "Plus there's that fancy scholarship he's here with. Free housing, all travel expenses covered, and he's here training with two of the best coaches in the nation in one of the best facilities in the city. To get all that when he's just eighteen—that's really something."

"So he's a celebrity here?" An inquired, incredulous. How could anyone revere Kirihara Akaya anywhere? Ever?

"He's kind of a big deal. And he doesn't really talk to a lot of people either. The men's team has been trying to recruit him since he set foot here—which hasn't been that long. He's been here since May, but all he's done in the last few months is practice with his trainers. It's like he's friendly with everyone, but not really friends with them, y'know?"

"Yeah, because he's an asshole," An began, but Maria just smiled a little and wiped her forehead with a towel.

"I don't think he's that bad," Maria said. "Do you?" An stayed silent, and Maria continued, "And then there's Kenny."

_Stay away from Kenny. _Why had Kirihara told her that? Who was he to tell her to stay away from anyone? "What about him?" An asked, her voice deceptively casual. She reached for her water bottle.

"He's kind of a flirt," Maria said slowly, "but it's more than that, I think. I don't really know—he and I aren't very familiar with each other."

"Really? But I thought—"

"Yeah, that's the thing with Kenny. He _acts_ like he's really familiar with everyone."

An thought back to Kenny's interaction with Kirihara. He had seemed so eager, but Kirihara's apathy had been almost palpable.

But she suspected there was more to the tension than just that.

"Anyway, how do you know him?" Maria asked curiously. "Akaya, I mean. Are you two friends?"

_Hey everyone, meet the kid who put my brother in a hospital! We're real chummy, the two of us. Two peas in a fucking pod. _

An rolled her eyes. "Yeah, something like that."

* * *

"Stop."

Natalie Miller, captain of the women's team, stepped onto the court, and An's opponent let her return bounce away, breathing heavily. Her opponent was a good player, but not as in shape as An was, even though An hadn't played a serious match in some weeks. An, meanwhile, was sweating mildly but breathing normally. It hadn't been an especially difficult match.

No, the match hadn't been especially strenuous. Kirihara Akaya, on the other hand…

She flicked her eyes to the tall, dark-haired teen, who leaned casually against a wall and watched her with a smug, self-satisfied little smile.

_I bet you think you're a hotshot right now, watching me try out for the tennis team. I bet you think you're a fucking special snowflake. Stalker. All the obnoxious things I'm going to say to you the second I step off these courts… I hope you're excited, Kirihara. I am going to verbally pummel you. Pummel you like pumice. I will be pumice-like in my pummeling. _Actually, maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Pumice was pretty flimsy.

An looked back to Natalie, and realized she had spoken while An was thinking about pumice. "That's enough," Natalie said pleasantly. Her curly chestnut hair was tied in a loose ponytail that threatened to fall apart any second, and it bounced against her shoulders as she walked toward An. "Thank you for trying out. We will let you know about the results next week."

An bowed, a habit she'd been teased for since moving abroad, but a habit that she had so far been unable to shake. "Thank you, Natalie." She ignored the faint snicker from Kirihara in the background.

"Not at all," Natalie replied. "We'll be lucky to have you. See you soon."

An beamed, exchanged some niceties, then made a beeline for Kirihara, who had pushed himself off the wall and was now standing with his hands in his pockets, like the most harmless boy in the world. "_You_. Why are you here? Are you following me? I was joking when I called you a stalker last time but maybe I had it right after all. Form a fan club for me or something but do me a favor and don't follow me to the women's locker rooms."

He sized her up for a second, this five foot five girl who barely reached his shoulders, then snorted. "Believe it or not, I come to tennis courts to play tennis."

"Is that why you were standing in a corner peering at me like a creeper?"

"That's why I was standing by the court and judging you like a supreme overlord, yeah."

She sneered at him, but it wasn't as sincere as she had wanted it to be. Somehow, it was just so hard to stay mad at him. "Well, Supreme Overlord Kirihara? How's my tennis?"

"Well, nowhere near as good as mine, of course. But relative to Columbia's team," Kirihara allowed, "you're good." He sneered back, a playful thing on his lips. "That's not saying much, though."

"I bet I could take you."

"In what, a crossword puzzle?"

"In a fight to the _death_. The only weapons allowed are paper clips. Let's go."

Kirihara whistled. "Getting a bit too cocky, Tachibana. Just yesterday, I fought off a bear with a paper clip, so I'd be careful if I were you."

"Your teddy bear?"

"An Ursaring," Kirihara said, smirking. "Tonight I'm going to challenge the Hoenn Elite Four."

"Ursarings are for pansies," An told him. "Pikachu, though. Pikachu is where it's at."

"That's unoriginal as fuck. And Pikachu is literally a mouse."

"You always have to watch out for the cute ones." An beamed and flipped her hair exaggeratedly. "That's why you should watch yourself around me."

"Damn, Tachibana, I knew you thought I was hot, but I didn't think you found me cute, too. Not sure how I feel about being cute, though. I prefer rugged."

"You're going to look pretty damn rugged once I'm done beating the daylights out of you," An said seriously.

Kirihara folded his arms behind his head and scoffed, "You do that while I enjoy the view up here half a foot above you."

An glared at him to the best of her ability. "So are you going to leave any time soon, or are you really going to follow me to the locker room?"

He gave her a brief once-over and mocked, "I think I'll pass. Won't really be a sight worth seeing."

"You know what would be worth seeing? If I punched you in the—"

Someone cleared their throat, and An realized that she and Kirihara had been bantering in probably more decibels than was acceptable in a tennis center. She cut herself off mid-sentence in embarrassment.

Kirihara flicked her lightly on the forehead and she blinked up at him. "I have a meeting with my trainers in ten minutes. Try not to suck too much while I'm gone." He grinned, a flash of teeth. "But I guess you're okay for a girl. Good thing, too, or I'd have to stop associating with you. Hanging out with pansies is bad for my image."

Forgetting for a second that she had just been shushed, An called after him, "Yeah, you're really living that thug life!"

He gave her a lazy salute without turning around, and An proceeded to head toward the locker rooms, hiding a smile and ignoring the stares she got on the way.

* * *

An wasn't surprised when she made the team. It wasn't that she thought she was some special, spectacular, once in a lifetime tennis player. She _knew _special, and even if her tennis wasn't average, she didn't think she could take on her brother in a match. And she was okay with that.

But the varsity tennis team seemed to take tennis far less seriously than she did, and judging by the way the other women on the team had hushed upon seeing her try-out, she suspected that she was one of the better players that had tried out for the team.

It was a little frustrating, to play tennis on a team that didn't take itself seriously. Maria and Natalie seemed to feel passionately about the sport, and so did Hannah, the vice-captain, but the other players seemed to only be on the team to kill time.

But An showed up to practice twice a week as expected of her. It was the off-season, so obligations were at a minimum, and An was one of the few people who attended practice regularly—more than regularly, because she made a trip to the tennis center whenever she had a spare moment, which ended up being around five times a week. And always, always, always, she would run into Kirihara, who turned out to have his conditioning and training sessions around the same time that An had her practices.

For one reason or another, he would take the time to stop by, banter with her a little, and for one reason or another, she would banter back. Strangely enough, it was fun—regardless of any history they'd had five years ago, regardless of who changed and when and how, Kirihara Akaya was—_fun. _He was fun to talk to. And despite his sarcastic remarks, his jabs and taunts, he was never malicious to her. So she began to expect him at practices, waited for a tangle of a dark hair and green, green eyes to meet her each time she set foot on the courts. And he always did.

So today, when she was using the ball machines and Kirihara zoomed by to intercept the ball, An didn't even blink.

"Don't you have a puppy to kick? An old lady to mug?" An inquired, not bothering to look over.

"Been there, done that," he said dismissively. "I have an appointment with some mobsters in an hour, but until then I'm free to channel my thug-ness into whatever I want."

An gestured to his clothes, which were uncharacteristically preppy. They weren't even exercise clothes, and he smelled faintly of shampoo. An guessed he had just finished his training for the day, showered, changed, and was heading back home. "I think that Ralph Lauren polo you're wearing really conveys your thug-ness."

"Ralph Lauren lived the thuggest life out of all of us," Kirihara agreed, and placed a hand over his heart. "Bless his soul."

"So do you usually dress like a prep-school boy from Connecticut, or is this a special occasion?" She reset the ball machine.

Kirihara scowled. "I have a meeting with the people who run my scholarship program. I'm supposed to dress nice for it. A lot of donors and whatnot. The son of one of the donors is a tennis fan or something and he's in New York for the weekend, so they're kicking up a big fuss over it." He kicked at the ground, scuffing his shoes.

An looked at him critically. A white polo, chino pants, and a pair of Sperry boat shoes. "You don't look formal. You just look… preppy." In fact, he looked a bit like he was going to choke in those clothes; they exuded a sort of sublimation, contained his electric energy in something white and bland and _domestic_. He looked almost like an animal in a cage. It was unsettling, but she grinned up at him and gave him her next best simile. "You look like a suburban dad."

"Have _you_ ever seen such a fierce, badass suburban dad?"

"Wild, uncontrollable creatures, those suburban dads," An said solemnly. "Raising kids, going to work, dealing with Russian mobsters… Every day is a struggle."

They argued until Kirihara was late for his meeting and An needed to return to campus.

Rinse and repeat, hour after day after week, but not once did either of them bring up the topic of Tachibana Kippei. The thought permeated in the back of her mind, and An pushed it farther back, further down, suppressed and suppressed and suppressed until it became habitual.

* * *

Haruki was sitting cross-legged on the bed and looking pensive when An returned to their room. "Meditating?" the chestnut-haired girl guessed. "Or planning your next crime?"

Haruki looked at her in mock-wonder. "How did you guess?"

"I was planning on doing the same thing," An joked. "Car hijacking and then robbing a bank. And then fleeing to Las Vegas."

"'Cause, y'know, it's just a hop away from New York," Haruki replied, straight-faced.

"Exactly." An plopped down on the bed opposite Haruki's, and mimicked her cross-legged position. "Anything exciting happen while I'm gone?"

Haruki sighed. "I mean, nothing really. Just, my cousin is in the city for some random academic holiday they have in the UK." At An's baffled look, she explained, "He goes to Oxford."

An whistled, impressed. "High-achieving family, aren't you?" She looked at Haruki's sandy hair and lavender eyes, and tried to imagine what a relative of Haruki would look like.

…maybe Haruki in drag?

Haruki shrugged. "He's kind of an outrageous person. We get along fine, just… it's really nice to be away from family sometimes, y'know? Especially from someone who just outdoes you in _everything_." Haruki smiled ruefully.

"He's not here for long, though, is he?"

"Nah, just a couple of days. It's not that bad, I'm just being whiney. It's not like he eats babies or anything."

"I've always wanted to meet a baby-eater," An said distantly. Haruki arched an eyebrow. "What's your cousin's name? Haibara…?"

"Different family name," Haruki corrected. "He's on my mom's side. Maybe you knew him, actually. He went to school in Tokyo." She pursed her lips. "Actually, Tokyo's a pretty big city, so maybe not."

"Tokyo is a big, magical place," An agreed.

Haruki laughed.

"Well, tell me if you recognize the name at all. Keigo. Atobe Keigo."


	4. Chapter 4

**Lighters, 4**

'_cause you're a good girl and you know it_

_you act so different around me_

_Just Hold On, We're Going Home_, Drake

* * *

An was hungry.

It was noon on a Friday and she had only one morning class on Fridays (which was lovely—almost like a three-day weekend). So the logical course of action was, of course, to go get food and perhaps enter a food coma and then watch TV on her laptop in her room and hibernate until Sunday.

She shuffled to the main dining hall on campus, looking up occasionally to admire the change in scenery. The leaves were starting to change color. Students began pulling out their scarves, their jackets—fashionable things, they were, because they lived in New York City, and dressing nicely seemed to be law.

Speaking of the well-dressed.

An wasn't terribly surprised to see a limousine pull up on campus, to see the driver respectfully exit and open the limousine door, a sleek, black thing. She wasn't terribly surprised to see one elegant leather shoe exit the car and set foot on the sidewalks of Broadway, to see a handsome young man with shining, curling hair and eyes blue and deep like the Caspian Sea.

Atobe Keigo wore a very nice button-down shirt in a preppy shade of blue, a pair of chino pants and leather shoes, and An thought he looked more like a British socialite than a Japanese college student—but Atobe was always something else, a different species entirely.

Students had begun to stop and whisper. Limousines and celebrities weren't uncommon things in New York City, and not particularly at Columbia, either. But there was something about Atobe, some inherent charisma that he exuded without speaking a word. It was something in the way he held himself, something in the sharpness of his cheekbones and the sparkle in his eyes. He was icy composure, a winter flurry in an Indian summer and the students on campus stared at him unabashedly, forgot themselves and just stared.

Atobe stood there, indubitably aware of the stares on him with something like smugness, and looked around the campus with watchful eyes, focused and thoughtful, searching for something that would hold his interest. And then his eyes stopped on her.

She sighed. _Damn it. _

Of course, the fact that his eyes had stopped on her didn't especially surprise her, either. He was an incredibly observant person, and she imagined that he was excellent at picking people out of crowds. Besides, she wasn't standing especially far from the limousine, either—just a few yards away, about to set foot in the dining hall. She had slowed when she saw the limousine pull up, but unconsciously stopped walking completely when she saw Atobe step out. That was just the effect he had on people.

He met her eyes and smiled, a small, self-satisfied thing, and resigning herself to her fate, she walked over to him.

"Fancy encountering you here," he said pleasantly.

Over the years, she had eventually warmed up to him. He was arrogant, and sometimes obnoxious, and more than often a little absurd, but he wasn't a _bad_ person. And he had mellowed a bit throughout high school as well. They were, if not friends, then at least on good terms. But conversations with Atobe were witty exchanges. He was so impressive as to be imposing, and sometimes their encounters were draining. She enjoyed his company when he chose to offer it, however, and meeting him was never unpleasant. She laughed. "I didn't want to believe it when Haruki told me, but here you are."

"You wound me," he replied easily, and with one hand on the small of her back, guided her further inside the campus. "And how do you find Columbia University, An-chan?"

"I find it," she said, wrinkling her nose. "I just… find it. New York is…" She gestured with her hands, wild motions meant to illustrate the explosive energy she felt in the city. "You know?"

"Indeed," he said wryly. He scanned the campus with those eyes, blue and blue and blue, sparkling with mirth but strangely opaque. Atobe's eyes, An thought, were like one-way glass. But a very peculiar kind of one-way glass, because only what he wanted to show could be seen. His eyes sparkled but if there was more behind it, she couldn't tell. At last he nodded, a decisive motion. "Your campus is acceptable. Perhaps not as elegant as my own, but it is acceptable." He glanced at her, his smile reaching his eyes, and An smiled too. Atobe would do as Atobe does.

"So why are you here?" she asked. "Just chillin' like a villain?"

"Villains tend to lose, An-chan," he told her. "I prefer to win. And to answer your question, my presence was requested by the Atobe Group earlier this week." At her curious look, he elaborated, "The Atobe Group sponsors a very prestigious tennis program. As an aficionado of tennis myself, I can only imagine that the managers of program thought it fitting for me to personally acquaint myself with the recipient of this year's tennis scholarship." Amusement, real amusement, seeped into his voice. "I don't suppose I need to inform you of whom the recipient was."

"_You're_ the son of the sponsor of Kirihara's scholarship?" she exclaimed. "You're the reason he dressed like a suburban dad to go to a fancy meeting?"

Atobe seemed surprised—but it lasted so briefly that An could hardly tell. "Yes, I suppose I am," he drawled.

* * *

Atobe looked at her.

She had grown taller, but not by much. Her hair was longer, but still only barely fell past her shoulders. Her eyes, he was pleased to note, were still the clear, determined blue-grey eyes he had found himself so drawn to all those years ago.

It had surprised him to learn that she was studying in New York for a semester, especially because he himself frequented New York so often. It had surprised him to learn that his cousin, Haruki, was her roommate. He and Haruki were not especially close, but—really, the odds were incredible.

But what surprised him most was her reaction to the name "Kirihara Akaya."

He had heard, from Haruki, that Tachibana An was acquainted with a tennis player from Kanagawa. As far as Atobe knew (and he knew quite a bit), Kirihara was the only tennis player from Kanagawa who was in any way affiliated with Columbia University. He had allowed himself to briefly consider the implications of such a situation—Kirihara and An, sharing a campus. Kirihara and An, sharing a tennis center. An, he suspected, was not immature enough to hold a grudge after so many years. But she _would_ resent him, Atobe knew.

Her reaction to Kirihara's name—had been nothing short of fireworks. There was no flicker of resentment in her eyes, only the faintest hint of confusion, confusion and conflict suppressed and suppressed and suppressed, confusion and conflict that he suspected would bubble back up soon enough. But her voice was clear, her expression animated. There was nothing forced in the way she regarded Kirihara Akaya.

He appraised her with interest. _A strange development that has yet to be developed. _

"I should've guessed it was you," she was saying. "When Kirihara said that the son of a wealthy sponsor played tennis. Who else could it have been?" She paused. "Your clone, maybe. Your evil twin. I haven't met him yet, have I? Why haven't you introduced me? Afraid I'll like him more than you?"

He regarded her for a moment, then drawled, "I do own a Fifth Avenue penthouse here, An-chan. You might expect to see me in New York more often. And as for my evil twin, that would be absurd. You could never be fonder of somebody other than myself." Then, curiously, "How is your brother?"

_That_ made her stop, Atobe noted with some attention.

She seemed at a loss, but then beamed at him, a bright, forced thing that he saw through immediately. "He's great. Playing in the pro leagues right now, and he's really doing great, too. He's training for a pretty big tournament right now." Her smile faltered a little. "So he's pretty busy."

"I see," he murmured, his voice distant. Deciding it was an appropriate time to change the subject, he continued, "Tezuka is doing quite well in the professional circuits, is he not?" He said it more musingly than questioningly—he, after all, was one of those who knew Tezuka best. That, of course, was both something of a blessing and a curse. Tezuka was a dear friend of his, but Atobe could not deny the flicker of jealousy he felt whenever the topic of professional tennis arose. Those who knew him knew very well how desperately he, too, had hoped to enter the professional circuit, and it was not egoism that assured Atobe of his ability to be successful should he have chosen to enter. But the only son of the Atobe financial group had other obligations, always other obligations… He was content attending Oxford, content as the scion of his family's financial group, and he had, to some degree, grown out of his desire to play professionally. A small part of that desire, however, had permanently ensconced itself in a dark corner of his heart, and he did not feel as though he had the right to evict it.

"We all saw that one coming," An was saying, bobbing a little, leaning back on her heels. "I still can't believe he left just before high school. I wonder what high school in Germany is like." The conversation continued along those lines, veering safely into small-talk, and he considered her with a little smile.

Kippei and Kirihara. The two men in An's life.

It was a strange combination, indeed.

One that he would see play out.

* * *

(On the train ride to the tennis institute, An held a book in her hands. It was a Romantic novel, written by Emily Brontë, in English old and obtuse made doubly difficult for An to understand as a non-native speaker. But such was her English literature class, and she was determined to muddle through it.

_Wuthering Heights_ was a love story between two people, An thought. It was the story of a dark, dark gypsy-boy, an orphan-boy named Heathcliff who was a little rough around the edges.

And it was the story of a girl named Catherine Earnshaw, who fell in love with Heathcliff with all the ardor and passion of a summer storm.

Catherine's family, the Earnshaw family, owned a manor called Wuthering Heights. They adopted the gypsy-boy. Hindley Earnshaw, Catherine's brother, resented Heathcliff greatly, and as of chapter five, Mr. Earnshaw had died, leaving Hindley to take over the manor.

An put the book away and glanced out the train window. It was raining.)

* * *

Akaya's eyes lit up when he saw a familiar figure with chestnut brown hair walk through the tennis center doors. He had been practicing with the ball machine, but had opted to take a quick water break—at the perfect moment, it seemed, because at that moment, Tachibana caught his eyes and lit up too, grinned trotted over to him. He couldn't suppress a feeling of distinct satisfaction, even smugness. Smugness that she was being sunny, cheerful, happy—smugness that he could draw that out in her.

"How has your day been without my awesome?" she asked as she approached, her nose turned up at him haughtily. It was nothing short of hilarious, given that he was about half a foot taller than her.

"Your awesome is just a lesser copy of my awesome." He thought about it. "Like the moon is just a copy of the sun. Or like cats are lesser copies of saber tooth tigers."

Tachibana regarded him seriously. "Your face is a lesser version of a saber tooth tiger."

"Saber tooth tigers are lesser versions of my face," Akaya crowed, flipping a racquet with one hand. Tachibana was dressed in the Columbia varsity uniform, he observed, which meant she was probably here for practice. He wondered how late he could make her before she had to go.

"You make me want to sic a saber tooth tiger _on_ your face," An informed him.

"Are you that intimidated by my attractiveness?" Akaya deadpanned.

"You're so pretty that it hurts. Like a geisha. A really pretty, weak, fragile geisha." She sneered at him, a playful thing, and bumped him away from the water fountain with her hip. He let her. Every time she touched him, Akaya was reminded of how much smaller than he she was; that despite her feistiness, and for all her big talk, she was really a five foot five tall _girl_. He wondered if she dressed like girls did—however girls dressed. Skirts and flimsy, frilly things, he supposed. He tried to imagine Tachibana wearing something girly, and drew a blank.

_I don't think I've ever seen her in anything besides exercise clothes_, he realized.

Well. Not like that mattered. There was something _right_ about Tachibana in exercise clothes. It made him forget that she was a girl sometimes, that she was Tachibana An, five foot five and probably a hundred pounds light. To him, she was just another tennis player on the courts, another student in New York City—

But that wasn't entirely true, he thought. There was still something about her that was different from the other tennis players he'd met in New York. Something about the curve of her eyes when she smiled, the slant of her lips. Something about the fact that there was sunlight intermingled in her laugh. He swallowed.

He heard himself say, "Wanna rally with me?" Tennis. Tennis was the best way to forget about that bizarre, confusing feeling. Playing tennis was like standing on solid ground and soaring above it, all at the same time. Solid, because Akaya wasn't quite as sure of anything else in the world as he was of the fact that he loved tennis and he was damn good at it, too. Damn sure of his forehand, backhand, serve, volley, smash, just as sure he was of breathing, sleeping, eating. And tennis felt like soaring, too, because of that rush of adrenaline, the small tickle in his stomach when he had climbed a bit too high, swam a bit too far. There was thrill in tennis just as much as there was surety in tennis, so whatever this weird sunshine-feeling he got from Tachibana was, whatever was wrong—

Tennis would fix it.

But then Tachibana looked at him, and he hated the wariness in her eyes. He hated the hesitation in her voice when she said, "I don't know…" Hesitation and wariness like stained glass too flimsy to hold, something too delicate for him to not want to destroy. What were her boundaries? How far could he go without breaking her? Who was she to be sunny one moment and cloudy the next? To provoke and tease him and then shy away?

Who _was_ she?

So he sneered at her, was pleased when she flinched as he said, "What, are you scared? Scared I'll beat you so bad that you'll run away crying?"

The look on her face suggested that she _was_ scared, and Akaya hated that, too. He'd been trying to intimidate her—and was both satisfied and frustrated that he'd succeeded.

She seemed to battle with herself for a moment. And then she smiled at him, a small, resolute thing that said, _I'll take a chance on you. _It wasn't sunny, wasn't bright, but it was warm, and it made him feel that weird sunshine-feeling again. He pushed it down, down, down as she told him, "You better have brought a box of tissues with you, Kirihara, because you're going to be sobbing when I'm done with you."

They both knew that she was joking—that there was no way she would beat him if he played seriously against her. But he liked that she was bantering with him again. He liked it when they verbally sparred. She was just—_fun_. So he drawled, "How did you know I bring tissues with me everywhere?"

She deadpanned, "You always seemed like a delicate flower."

"Is that your way of telling me you're jealous of my good looks?"

She laughed. It sounded like sunlight and tinkling bells. "Do you have plans to not be a jerk sometime this week?"

Akaya pretended to think about it. "I do have plans to go out tonight," he acknowledged, "but not being a jerk there could be bad for my reputation."

"You know what else is going to be bad for your reputation? When you get utterly trashed by me." Tachibana trotted to the other side of the court, and Akaya fished his pockets for a ball. She was good, he thought—good for a girl. She took tennis more seriously than the other girls on campus did, and that was… something. It _meant_ something.

_But she's still a girl_, he thought stubbornly.

Tachibana watched him from across the net. It wasn't an intimidating stare, wasn't even a calculating stare. It was just a stare—careful, a little wary, a little trusting, a little of a lot of things that Akaya couldn't discern.

He could have served a Knuckle Serve. He could have tried to pick her apart the way he did everyone else. But—he didn't. He served a normal serve, they rallied lightly, and Akaya told himself, _It's because she's a girl_. He didn't hit girls…

—but that wasn't it, either. He hit shot after shot and she returned shot after shot and he knew that she knew that he wasn't going all-out (and what was that secret smile on her face). He was going easy, but not just because it wasn't a real match, not just because she was a girl.

It wasn't that she was a girl. It wasn't that she was five-foot-five and had wrists he could probably snap if he wanted to.

It was that she made him feel like sunshine, that she laughed like bells and happy things and there was something terribly warm about her and she was Tachibana An and they were friends, and maybe that meant something.

And somehow, he knew that if he tried to break it, tried to break it and piece it back together—it wouldn't. It wouldn't hold anymore. It would be a mosaic of a relationship, too delicate for him to bother with, for him to value.

So they rallied, and he shouted, "Come on Tachibana, is that the best you can do? Are you hitting with a _twig_?" and she shouted back, "I'm hitting with your _mom_," and everyone else in the tennis center stared and glared and Akaya grinned. She was funny, she was fun, and he was happy.

* * *

"AndheinvitedmeandIthinkit'dbefunbutIdon'twanttogoalonesoplease?"

Haruki said it all in one breath, and An crinkled her nose a little as she tried to dissect what Haruki had just said—_There's a frat party today and one of the boys from the fraternity is really cute and is going to be at the party and he invited me and I think it'd be fun but I don't want to go alone so please? _An had only just gotten back from tennis practice—and from her rally with Akaya—when Haruki had all but ambushed her at the door.

Haruki looked at her with big, lavender eyes and An sighed. "I mean, I don't mind. That's what the college experience is all about, right? Going to frat parties and getting drunk and waking up on the right side of the wrong bed?" She made a face. "Actually, that doesn't sound like fun at all. What if the wrong bed is uncomfortable? What if it's not a bed but a log bench? What if I wake up on a log bench? I'm not okay with that."

Her roommate laughed. "If I promise to make sure you don't get kidnapped by any guys who sleep on log benches then will you go with me?"

Truth be told, An wasn't entirely sure about going. It wasn't that she planned on never going to a party in college—it _was_ part of the college experience, she reasoned, and it was something she wanted to get a taste of. It had just always been a concept in the back of her mind; she hadn't realized she would be presented with the opportunity to go to an American college party so soon.

If she really didn't want to go, or didn't feel comfortable going, she would have said _no _right away. Roommate-friendship-pact be damned—she wouldn't do something she felt uncomfortable doing if her own _professor_ told her to. Peer pressure and all that jazz.

But she did want to go to the party. She just… felt apprehensive.

Haruki clearly didn't feel apprehensive. Upon realizing that her roommate was a relative of Atobe, she had questioned Haruki intensely, and learned that Haruki had studied abroad in the United States as a high schooler, and had attended her share of American parties already. "It's bad to go alone to these things," she was saying. "Not just for safety reasons. It's just—weird to go alone."

_Well, why not_, An reasoned. _It's not like I can just avoid drunken sleazy men for the rest of my life. May as well learn how to deal with them now. Maybe if I go to these things more often I'll build up immunity. _Aloud, she said, "Okay, okay, I'll go. What do you wear to these things?"

Haruki clapped her hands together in relief. "Thank you! You won't regret it, I promise!" She began sorting through her own clothes. "It's pretty nice out, and at most parties you'd wear a crop top and short shorts. You went to high school in Japan though, so you might not own any…"

An thought back to the mid-riff baring shirts she had worn as a middle-schooler. "I used to," she began dubiously, "but I didn't bring them with me, and they probably don't fit me anymore, anyway." She had grown out of that style when she stopped trying to act older than she was. It was a phase that probably all tween-girls went through—the overwhelming want to be that beautiful woman on the street, curvy and red lipstick and earrings and clothing a little too sexy. It took a couple of years for her to realize that she didn't want to be that sort of woman at all.

Haruki waved her hand. "You can borrow mine. We're about the same size, anyway." She held up a white top that was far too short to be considered a shirt, and a pair of shorts that barely qualified as clothing. All in all it quite resembled what she had worn in middle school, sans the hair barrettes.

_What the hell. Throwback Thursdays, right?_ An took the outfit offered to her with flourish, and said, "We are going to be the two most dazzling women your frat boy friend has ever seen."

* * *

And that was how she found herself, a few hours later, in her provocative crop-top and shorts, walking with Haruki down the block to the frat house.

Fraternity Row was the name of the street where all the university fraternity houses were located. There weren't very many of them compared to other American schools, but there were a good few, and the one that Haruki was dragging An to was a nice-looking townhouse, where the brothers of Delta Lambda Kappa resided. They were the sporty frat, Haruki was explaining—the soccer players and lacrosse players and tennis players and basketball players…

An half-listened, half-marveled at the number of people flocking to various frat-houses on a Thursday night. Party culture in the United States really was weird. It wasn't like she had never seen anyone drink before, or never seen anyone go to a party. There was deviancy in any culture, and An had known deviancy.

But never had she seen it flaunted so… openly.

Then again, maybe partying didn't really count as deviancy in a Western college.

Everywhere she looked, people were smoking. People reeked of alcohol—evidence that some of the kids had pre-gamed("It means they already drank alcohol before arriving at the party," Haruki had explained. "A lot of people tend to think these things are more fun when you're already drunk.") Girls dressed in clothing far more provocative than what An and Haruki had on. Boys serving as "bouncers" for their respective frat parties had their arms slung around prospective female party-goers, and An wrinkled her nose in disgust.

Haruki glanced at An half-apologetically. "It's not usually this gross, I promise," she offered. "It's just the first week of college. A lot of freshmen who have never partied in high school tend to go all-out this week, and get pretty sloppy." Haruki, though dressed like—well, a partygoer—still had enough class to look presentable, dignified, and be… well, sober.

"Uh-huh," An acknowledged. _You'd better be right. If this is what the norm is, then this thing is going to be the first and last American college party I ever go to. _She liked to have fun as much as the next guy—but come on. She looked askance at the girls giggling in the arms of a drunken fraternity brother. _This is just a total lack of self-respect. _

She and Haruki approached the Delta brothers' frat house, where a couple of frat bros were serving as bouncers. One boy leered at them. An kept her eyes hard, stared at him the way she would stare at an opponent across the net. _Sling your arm around me and I will _break_ that arm. _

…not that she was totally confident she could do that. These frat bros tended to be pretty ripped.

But eh. Technicalities.

Haruki kept her composure, looked at the frat bro coolly and said, "Jason invited us." Her smile was friendly but brisk. An couldn't tell whether she was flirting or challenging him, but whichever it was, it seemed to work, because the frat bro quit his leering, looked at her and whistled in a _hey check out the hot chick_ kind of way.

"Don't start any fights in there," he joked. "Our boys bruise easily."

The joke was friendly enough, but the humor and amicability insincere. Haruki laughed obligatorily and walked in. An followed.

Loud, thumping music. _Loud_. Not top-forty-hits music. Not even hipster music. Not even, say, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Just a _bass_, some sort of melody to it but mostly just the steady pulsing of the bass, _bump-de-dump, bump-de-dump. _

And it was dark. It was so dim, and the music reverberated in the townhouse that suddenly seemed too small for what must have been nearly a _hundred_ students on just the _first floor_—

Girls giggling flirtatiously, boys smiling in that friendly-but-insincere way, brushes too daring to be accidental, and was that a couple making out on the staircase? It wasn't even 9 PM yet!

And everyone was holding a red Solo cup. An had watched enough American films to know that those were party-cups, filled to the brim with some sort of alcohol. Beer, Vodka, gin, rum, something…

There were so many people. It was so loud. And somewhere in all the pushing ("The _good_ stuff is downstairs," someone had whispered close to her ear), she had lost Haruki in the crowd.

The smell of alcohol and some sort of smoke—weed? Tobacco? Was that a _hookah_?—filled the townhouse. And An didn't know what to feel. Fear? Thrill? This was the sort of thing she saw in movies. And now she was _here_, and surely she'd be okay because there were other freshmen here (mostly freshmen, probably, hoping to get a taste of their first college party), but there were also upperclassmen here, upperclassmen looking for fresh meat—

She pushed her way through, glancing carefully at the staircase that people were cramming themselves into, all fighting to get downstairs to the basement (where the "good stuff" was), but An stayed on the first floor and fought to get to a window that would hopefully be open, because otherwise she would suffocate from the sheer number of people in the frat house.

There were fewer people there. Fewer freshmen, at least. But there were a good number of boys wearing muscle tanks, carefully flaunting their abs and biceps. There were a few girls, too, holding those red Solo cups (who _knew_ what were in those things?). They looked at her as she approached.

But she didn't look back. Her eyes fixed on one boy in particular, standing there, looking simultaneously like he belonged there and like the most harmless boy in the world. The boy in a T-shirt and shorts, who for all the world looked lazy and apathetic and like he had thrown on the first thing he had seen before heading over to the party. The boy who at least half the girls on the first floor were staring at. The boy who, though bored, crackled with energy.

_His_ green eyes widened as they met hers, in something like shock and anger (_anger?_) and something else. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

An gaped.

"What are_ you _doing here, Kirihara?!"


End file.
